


The Darkness

by stellarel



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:06:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24485581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarel/pseuds/stellarel
Summary: The Doctor is afraid of the dark.This is why.
Kudos: 14





	The Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when Clara said the Doctor is afraid of the dark? Yeah, this is about that.

The Doctor was afraid of the dark.

Not because she was afraid there might be something there, in the shadows, but because she was afraid that there wasn’t.

So maybe it wasn’t as much a fear of the dark as it was a fear of loneliness.

Because she knew that eventually, there would be nothing but the dark.

Nothing but the cold, empty void. She had seen it - she had _been_ there when it happened. The end of the universe, slowly rolling towards inevitable disintegration. 

No stars. No planets. No life. Just her, alone in the middle of it all. 

Or, if there were stars, or planets, or life, still clinging onto existence somewhere in the edges of the universe, they would all be met with the same empty, cold darkness when looking up at the night sky.

See, the universe expands.

This means that as time goes on, every bit of distance in space expands, and stretches, and suddenly the nearest star isn’t four light years away, it’s five, and then six, and so on and so on and eventually, every star in the galaxy will be so far from each other that their light won’t reach other stars at all. And then the galaxies will drift apart, and the web of the universe will slowly come undone. 

There will be no stars in the night sky, then. No constellations, no shooting stars, just old legends about pictures in the sky. 

And the Doctor didn’t particularly like the idea of being on a desolated planet, alone in the stars, unable to see anything or anyone else. Unable to see the stars, or even know they’re there. 

Radio signals sent to other planets and star systems would fade out and float in the interstellar space, unheard, unanswered. Everyone would be screaming out into their own personal void, and they would never get a response.

She knew this was all far, far in the future. It was a future she could choose not to see. She had that option, as a time traveler, she could retire anywhere in time and space she liked. This wasn’t a future that she had to be a part of.

But she knew it was coming, slowly and steadily. And she had seen it once, as time ran out and the universe fell silent. 

And even though she was in the middle of a universe that was very much alive, right now, flickering and burning all around her and bursting with life, she still remembered that all-devouring emptiness.

The darkness. 

And every time she was met with a dark room, in the middle of the night or right as she woke up, in that half-fraction of a second before her brain came fully online, she was reminded of that cold, empty void of loneliness.

The fear that maybe there was nothing there, in the darkness. 


End file.
